Barbara Snell Dohrenwend (March 26, 1927 – June 28, 1982) was an American epidemiologist and social psychologist.
Barbara Dohrenwend's final position was at Columbia University School of Public Health, where she was a professor and the head of the Division of Sociomedical Sciences from 1979 until her death from cancer in 1982.
Dohrenwend's major work focused on stressors in life and their influence on the development and emergence of psychiatric illness.
[1][2] Dohrenwend's personal philosophy was that research should be conducted with the intention of reducing psychological suffering.
[4] The work was ultimately published in the American Journal of Community Psychology in 1987 by her collaborators in New York City and Israel titled "Life Stress and Pathology: Progress on Research Begun with Barbara Snell Dohrenwend".